News organizations that wait for online revenue to increase before reallocating major resources from traditional products to online products are making a huge and possibly terminal mistake, according to a research paper presented to a conference on the future of journalism hosted by the Yale Law School.

News consumers are shifting their attention to online products much faster than ad spending, but the money will catch up, the study argues. “All of which suggests that if traditional news organizations are to ‘survive’ and eventually thrive in this digital age, they need to radically change course and transform their century-old business model, following much of the same game plan used by … niche information providers – of shedding legacy costs as quickly as feasible, while simultaneously and aggressively re-building community and revenue online.”